From Christian Transcendence to the Maoist Sublime: Liu Xiaofeng, the Chinese Straussians, and the Conservative Revolt against Modernity

Abstract

Liu Xiaofeng (1956–) is best known today as the founder of the “Chinese Straussian School,” a conservative intellectual movement that advocated a quasi-theological form of political leadership in contemporary China. Little attention has been paid, however, to the intertwined relationship between Liu's political authoritarianism and his meditation on religion. This article traces Liu's lifelong search for a “religious consciousness” from his youthful yearnings for Christian redemption in the 1980s “New Enlightenment,” to the utter profanation of the sacred in his recent espousal of the Mao cult. I suggest that Liu's conservative turn should not obscure the profound and troubling continuity between his earlier search for an “otherworldly” religious ethics and his later obsession with “this-worldly” political theology. By exploring the entanglement between revolution and religion throughout Liu's zigzagging journey, this article considers Liu's transition as part and parcel of a generational endeavor to come to terms with the “politico-theological” legacies of Mao's revolution.